


Luxuries & Loss: The Oregon Edition

by MissGuenever



Series: Luxury and Loss [4]
Category: Leverage, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Blink and Miss It Avenger Cameos, Brewpub Menu, Comfort Food, Cooking, Eliot Spencer's Cooking, Eliot is a SEAL, Food, Friendship, Gen, Home Cooking, Military, Missing Scene, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy Cravings, Quiet, Times between capers, Uncle Sam family, Veterans, Why do I always write about food?, throwback thursday
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:42:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23615413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissGuenever/pseuds/MissGuenever
Summary: A continuation of theLuxuries and Losswith a dash ofBooks, and a sprinkle ofCities. Or in less food related terms: It is a character study and an exploration of Eliot's down time, and the highs and lows of having done and seen the things he has.  Visits with friends; and some tasty meals, heady discussions, and the trials & tribulations of coming up with the brewpub's menu.  You don't need to read Luxuries and Loss first.  Avenger's cameo is in Chapter 5: Dill Pickles & Strawberries
Series: Luxury and Loss [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1471631
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	1. Cake

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn’t going to continue this series of ficlets in Portland. But, this story just insisted on being a part of Luxuries and Loss, and not Books or Cities. So here it is, and a huge thank you to **Gaben** , who tirelessly betas my stuff.

It was a Monday; that meant the brew pub was closed. It was the day that Eliot usually took to get away from the city. Some days he went scouting out new sources for local suppliers: Fruits, vegetables, meats, honey, … Other times he’d sit in his apartment and read, or go hiking, walking, or just for a drive. Today though, it was different. And not different in a bad way. Today Eliot was driving out of the city to visit Ray. Eliot had run into Ray a few times while he’d still been in the Navy, Ray had been Army; a ground-pounder.

The first few times they’d run into each other, Ray had been taking classes to finish his Master’s degree, and couldn’t stop talking about how he was going to be a music teacher when he got out. He’d even taught a few guys on Eliot’s team how to play the guitar. He’d taught Dimple the trumpet; to this day, Eliot couldn’t figure out why Dimple wanted to learn how to play the trumpet. He’d helped Eliot, with his guitar playing a few years ago too.  
The last time he’d seen Ray had been not too long ago. They’d been on a job north of Portland, and the Ray he’d seen had been a different man. A very different man. Quiet, and kind of withdrawn; very much not the outgoing Army Captain Eliot had known. They’d chatted about really nothing at all; and it had taken a few minutes for it to click. Eliot had finally pieced it together when Ray’s German Shepard had leaned into him when a car backfired and caused Ray to start shaking.

Ray had PTSD. And given Petunia, the dog, who by all appearances was very well trained, Ray had it bad. PTSD dogs were only given to soldiers who had severe cases; kind of like seeing-eye dogs. It also explained the little gold colored metal studs in Ray’s ears; acupuncture needles. Acupuncture needles which were replaced weekly, indwelling needles was the term if Eliot remembered correctly. He’d read an article on it; Elambert, his massage therapist had emailed to him. Lord, he really missed that woman. But, she was in New England; and they were now in Oregon.  
So now a month later, Eliot was in his truck with the passenger seat full of ingredients to help Ray make a birthday cake for Tamika, his wife. He’d only met her once, while they were on that job. Apparently Tamika was a VA nurse and Ray’d met her there while he was in rehab. Eliot mused about all of the things Ray had told him about Tamika, and their life. They had a place out in the country; because the sounds of the city bothered him too much. They did come into the VA hospital once a week so that Ray and Petunia could meet with their therapist, and he could get his acupuncture needles changed.

Eliot ran through the list of things he’d packed in the apple crate. Confectioner’s sugar, never call it powdered sugar, real vanilla extract, and salt. The small cooler he’d stuck on top of the battered crate had heavy cream and butter from the local dairy. The Crisco, and it had to be Crisco, not a generic version was in the crate with the vanilla. He’d even brought a small box of salt. It was a lesson he’d learned when he’d first started cooking: When cooking at a friend’s house, never trust that they have a specific ingredient! And one that he’d learned the hard way.

The old apple crate that Eliot had found in the back of the barn in New Hampshire was the real deal. He’d spent most of a day carefully restoring it, smoothing a couple of rough spots, replacing a couple of screws, and oiling the dry wood. It was a memory of Boston, of his hideaway in New Hampshire, and the crazy neighbors that went with it! It was a tangible memory that he could take with him, and no one would know what it meant. In his line of work souvenirs could prove to be deadly; Eliot knew that sounded melodramatic, but it didn’t make it any less true. He’d seen people; well colleagues, he wouldn’t call them friends, he’d seen groups track down his colleagues families and to put it kindly remove them from the picture.

Speaking of New Hampshire, Eliot snapped his fingers as he remembered something. It was about time to get the furnace serviced at the farm. When he got back into town, he needed to call Shelley and remind him to get Bob from up the road to clean and do the annual furnace servicing. Damn thing was temperamental enough without having something clogged, broken or dirty. Although, the hitter would give that furnace a lot of credit; it was almost seventy years old and still working. 

Eliot glanced down at the directions that Tamika had given him on how to get to their farm. Hardison had been giving him grief about not having a GPS in the truck. But, the team hitter didn’t want a tether. He’d had enough electronic leashes in his life; and had seen enough of them fail and bring some pretty major operations down because of stupid things like changes in cloud cover, or someone decided to play with remote control airplanes. Electronic things needed to be able to send and receive and if something screwed with that ability, well it screwed with you. So Eliot had a paper map, and printed emailed directions sitting on the seat next to him. 

The map and the directions which Eliot had pretty much committed to memory were laying on top of a tattered paperback. It was “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy; it wasn’t a particularly happy novel. This book was the written version of the nightmares Eliot saw when he slept. He’d read it and reread it. Like Ray’s German Shepard, Petunia, “The Road” helped him work through what he saw in his mind. “The Road” discussed the apocalypse; but, not in the fancy way most books and movies showed it. This was a journey across America and it was both bleak and beautiful; but, the story gave Eliot the one thing that he needed to cope: It gave him hope. The story was about hope, hope for the future.  
It gave him hope and comfort like Tamika and Petunia gave Ray.


	2. The Luxury of Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaben, as always thank you for being my rocking beta; and putting up with my whining. Sorry this has taken so long; life has gotten in the way.

It had been one hell of day. Eliot had spent the day at the Veteran’s Administration with Ray. It had been hell for both of them. For Ray it had been the number of people, the noise, the constant jostling, and being touched. The issue for the Leverage hitter had been the reminders; the reminders of Afghanistan, Iraq, and a few other places.

He was just waiting to get home. He’d found a little building near the brewpub that had been abandoned. With the help of a contractor, and Hardison, he now had a nice little loft over a garage workshop area. It still galled the Leverage hitter that he’d needed the hackers help to get around the zoning laws and get his building zoned dual use – industrial/residential. But, now he had an awesome two thousand square foot loft which overlooked his garage, woodworking area, and beer brewing test area. This testing area was pretty small; but, it was completely separate from the ‘lab’ Hardison had where he tested his fruity and weird concoctions. Eliot tended to stick more to the classics; Porter’s and stouts in the winter, IPAs and Weizens in the summer.

They were now driving back towards the farm where Ray and Tamika lived and it was quiet for the first time all day. Ray had finally stopped shaking and was petting Petunia who was nestled around his ankles in the wheel well. Eliot couldn’t remember a time he’d talked this much in one day! But, Tamika had said that talking and keeping him occupied kept the issues to a minimum. So he’d talked he’d talked about the fishing spot he’d found near where Sophie had taken the guy looking for truffles. He’d talked about the wooden door he was finishing and how the curving molding had been difficult to strip the layers of paint off it, then how the special sanding pads had made getting into the little grooves of the molding easier, and how the stain hadn’t taken the way he’d wanted so he’d had to use four coats. And he had needed to use two separate colors of stain in the layers in order to get the door to blend together. They’d discussed the advantages of UV resistant polyurethanes versus the marine polyurethane, and which he should use because this was an exterior door which would get a lot of exposure to the elements.

Eliot talked all through lunch. A lunch where they’d both picked at the institutional food served in the cafeteria. They’d discussed the advantages and disadvantages of hydroponic versus organic lettuce. Well, Eliot had talked and Ray had pretty much grunted while trying to not throw up or start screaming. The hitter had discussed how the thirty-five day life cycle of hydroponic lettuce made it a very good choice for hydroponics; also you could control what it was exposed to. The downside was that you lost some of the flavor from the lettuce that was exposed to the elements.

The hitter had talked through the waiting period for the acupuncture clinic, where Ray was going to get the semi-permanent needles in his ears replaced. He’d discussed knitting, and how the occupational therapist had taught him to knit after he’d damaged his hand in a ‘kitchen incident.’ Eliot had talked his way through the garter stitch, dropping stitches, purling… And had been saved when a nice lady named Nancy who ran a fiber arts studio had saved him and began talking about meditative aspects of knitting, and how for beginners the total concentration required to get the stitches correct allowed one to empty their mind. Nancy had discussed the differences between knitting and purling. She’d shown them the simple scarf she was making for her son-in-law who was in his weekly group therapy meeting. It was a very simple basket weave, four purl stitches, and then four garter stitches, finally repeat that for four rows. And then reverse. It made the scarf look like a basket. Eliot had done similar things on cakes in buttercream frosting. On the top of that cake, which had been for a party for Sophie, he’d made dozens of roses in different shades of pink and red with leaves in varying shades of green. By the end of frosting that cake he’d gone through fifteen shades of pink and red, and five shades of green.

“Christ how did Hardison manage to talk so much!” the hitter thought to himself as the day finished at the acupuncture clinic and they walked over to the psych unit so that Ray could do his monthly check-in with his psychiatrist and make sure his medication was still working correctly. It was so bad he’d even started talking about the fiftieth anniversary specials that the hacker had made him watch; it had been a series of three hour shows with the unwieldy title of Doctor Who: Doctors Revisited. No matter what anyone said; Eliot would swear up and down that he didn’t enjoy that stupid nerd show! Although, it did have some interesting plot twists, the Daleks were really pretty interesting. And they seemed quite plausible. Plus the Doctor's pretty sidekicks had very interesting personalities. Of course the Tardis thingy was a bit over the top; it had everything one ever needed in this tiny space; except no kitchen. And what time-traveling astronaut didn’t need to eat?

They were in the waiting area for the head-shrinker. Eliot took a rather stern view towards most of the shrinking that went on; but, he did understand that the drugs they administered did alter brain chemistry for the better. And he grudgingly admitted that talk therapy did help a lot of people. But, it still didn’t give him anything to talk about. He felt around the backpack he’d brought with him. It had a couple of magazines: Road and Track, and The Economist; but, they’d discussed both of them already. The only thing left was his mail; and like a drowning man looking for a life jacket Eliot started sorting through his mail: Bill, bill, computer advertisement (Hardison must be spamming him again), and a small box from Faith. Faith, a lifesaver! Eliot ripped open the box and a book fell out. Ray picked up the thin book with the awkward title of Introduction to the Use of Clustering in Adaptive Algorithms.

Ray had cocked an eyebrow at him. The idea of his military buddy enjoying a little light reading in some obscure math field didn’t fit his perception of Eliot. Ray’s foot stopped twitching as he read the back of the blue book. He understood about every other word; and not when they were grouped together. Below the description there was a picture of a woman in glasses with her biography next to the picture. MIT professor of mathematics and computer science and a whole list of awards, a very long list of awards! “Conquest?”  
Eliot glared at him. “Friend.”

“Friend?” Ray looked at the picture. “What did you save her from?” He’d known Eliot long enough to know his penchant for saving women and children that were in distress.

“Didn’t.” Eliot shrugged; he’d had one night of sex with Faith. Right before they’d moved to Portland. He hadn’t been back; but, he’d had Shelley check in on her occasionally. “She’s friends with Hardison, this is for him.”

Ray flipped the book open and read the acknowledgements out-loud. “ _Leverage. Power or ability to act or to influence people, events, decisions, etc. I need to say thank you to Cora who taught me that family is not necessarily that which you are born into; but, that which finds you. Alec, Cora, Eliot, Nate, Parker, and Sophie: Thank you, thank you for more than you know. You all have given me a family to call my own. A family which gives and gives. Thank you for accepting me as I am; and showing me how to be better. Keep doing good works, and I hope this helps you all in some small way_.”

Eliot blushed as Ray read the short inscription. 

“Well, I’d say you rescued her from something.”

“Nope.” The hitter shook his head.

“The man doth protest too much, methinks.”

“Butchering Hamlet won’t get you too far.” Eliot glared at his old friend who just started laughing. “Isn’t it time for your appointment?”

“Ohh… Eliot!” Petunia found this interesting enough to look up the two men and grumbled deep in her throat. To the hitter it sounded like she was bored; Ray just petted her on the head. 

“You sound like a high school girl.” Eliot growled at the man who was one of his oldest friends.

“And… You’re… You’re…”

“Saved by the bell!” Eliot watched as a group streamed out of the therapy room. “I think they’re ready for you.”

“Looks like.” Ray grunted; the mischievous light in his eyes dimming a little. He hated his talk therapy group, even as a recognized that it did him good. It was nice to know that he wasn’t alone in all of these. So, he got up and with Petunia walked into the therapy room.

Eliot glanced over at where Ray sat sleeping in his truck. Gawd, it had been a horrid day! But, it was nice to know that he had the luxury of being able to take a day off to spend it with an old friend like Ray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Clustering Framework to Build Focused Web Crawlers for Automatic Extraction of Cultural Information by George E. Tsekouras, Damianos Gavalaas, Stefanos Filios, Antonios D Niros, and George Bafaloukas is a real paper and is where I got the idea for the book Faith wrote in the short fic One Night Stand, which I'm still trying to figure out the ending to (If anyone wants to help, I'd really appreciate it. And these guys deserve credit because dang, this stuff is only a little bit dense.


	3. Exhaustion

It had been one hell of a day. Everything had gone to shit. Nate and Hardison were viewing it all as a game. Eliot was trying to protect the team by keeping them together; although sometimes he wondered if he was to protect them from external enemies, or from themselves. And he felt like he was failing. He was trying to keep himself together; trying to keep his shit together… 

It was nights like this that Eliot couldn’t sleep. Nights where the nightmares kept him up. He didn’t want to turn into Nate; drinking all his troubles away so it was on nights like this when he hit the pool near the brewpub. He’d made friends with the pool manager, Tate, and made an anonymous donation to the pool to upgrade the systems (and re-plaster the pool surface), and in exchange had gotten a key and a code which allowed him pool access at night when there weren’t kids splashing around in the kiddy pool, old folks in the therapy pool, and fat people in the spa. 

So late at night he was in the pool swimming. Concentrating on the feeling of his strokes, abandoning the combat side stoke for free-style. The combat side-stroke Eliot had learned in BUDS let a person swim for extended periods of time without using a lot of energy. The point of tonight’s swim was to leave the hitter exhausted enough to sleep. So he warmed up with a slow five hundred meters. And he was happy that the local swim team had practice in the morning; it meant Tate had the pool set up for fifty meter lanes before he’d left. The hitter concentrated on his arms slicing into the water and pulling as much of it as possible behind him; he concentrated on using his quads as he kicked – using the large muscles in his legs. Ensuring that his arms went straight over his head and pulled back. Making sure that his body stayed straight in the water, and his hips didn’t rotate. 

Five hundred meters to warm up. Back and forth across the pool ten times. Back and forth, pull and kick, pull and kick, pull and kick, pull and kick, breathe, pull and kick, … Five laps across the pool; five ups and five backs separated by flip turns: Curl, rotate, push, glide, stroke, breathe… Stroke, kick, stroke, kick, stroke, kick, stroke, stroke, kick, breathe, … Stroke, kick, stroke, kick, stroke, kick, stroke, stroke, kick, breathe, … Repeat. Four strokes and breathe. Repeat. 

Coming back to the wall and getting ready to take off again for another set of laps, breast stroke this time. Eliot found himself shoved under the water and held down. He flailed and fought for a couple of seconds until he found an old set of black long fins shoved in front of his face. Stopping his struggling the former SEAL grabbed the fins and put them on feeling the tightness in lungs from lack of oxygen.

As soon has he had the fins on the pressure on his body was released and deep voice grunted. “Gimme a thousand, free. Breathe every three.”

Eliot relaxed a little more; he recognized the voice. Tate, the pool manager. Striking out Eliot started swimming freestyle. Ensuring that he was stretching his arms for reach, and using his whole leg. No flip turns with the fins on, instead he touched the wall and pushed off. Breathing every third stroke. After he finished the ten laps Tate had ordered he popped up and looked at the former ATF agent.

“Cops called, said say they saw an old truck in the lot.”

“Sorry.”

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Mmm…” Eliot decided this would be a great time time to adjust his swimming goggles.

Tate just nodded. His twenty years as part of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had given him some nifty nightmares too. Sometimes the only way to beat them was to move until you were too exhausted to do anything else.

“Pushups. Gimme fifty.”

Grunting the hitter pulled off his fins and hauled himself out of the pool, panting a little. Damn he was out of shape compared to when he’d been on the teams! 

“Push sailor.” Tate grunted, a little unhappy about being gotten out of bed at zero-dark-zero. This didn’t qualify as zero-dark-thirty. But, at the same time he understood Eliot’s need for sleep, absolution through physical exertion.

Finishing the push-ups Eliot rose to attention just like he had in all of his training, only to be shoved back into the pool. “Five laps, breast stroke.” As Eliot put on his goggles Tate tried to channel his best Drill Instructor voice. “Move it. We don’t have all morning.”

Eliot responded to the authority and started swimming. Tate had to admire the cleanness of the hitter’s stroke. As he finished his fourth lap and came back to the wall. Tate shoved a water bottle into his hand and started talking. “Ain’t sleepin.’ Curl. Hundred” The pool manager grunted at a bar mounted about six inches up from the pool deck met the wall.

It wasn’t a question; a statement. Wasn’t a damn thing Eliot could say about it. So he just shrugged.

Eliot went through the crunches, thankful that he did these every morning. When he finished, out of pure muscle memory he got back in the pool waiting for instruction. And he wasn’t disappointed. “Five laps, back stroke.”  
‘Fuck, next Tate would want him to do fly!’ Eliot thought as he started swimming. Butterfly was the one stroke the hitter had never mastered. It required a huge output of energy; and didn’t give you much in terms of speed. Although it did look really cool.

“Mountain climbers, gimme twenty-five.” Tate barked from the folding chair he’d pulled up next to the swimming lane Eliot was using. 

‘Fuck.’ Eliot thought to himself, he wasn’t an ‘unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit,’ and more to the point hadn’t been in almost twenty years. But, he was still standing on the edge of the pool deck doing fucking mountain climbers! 

As soon as he finished Tate handed him the swim fins again. “Thousand. Free-style, breathe every four.”

Eliot was thankful for the fins; while they added to his speed and required more use of his leg muscles; he could use less of his shoulders and arms. He cleanly kicked off the wall, concentrating on stroking, breathing every fourth stroke, touching the wall, and pushing off again. By the end of the ten laps he was breathing hard and tiredness was starting to set in.

“Push sailor.” Tate grunted. He worried about his friend; he’d seen the shadows behind his eyes. There had been shadows behind many of his colleagues eyes; colleagues who often ended up riding desks because they couldn’t take the nightmares. “Fifty.”

Feeling the strain in his muscles, and the pull across his back Eliot grunted out fifty push-ups. 

“Watch your back.” Bob grunted. Damn he was getting old! Swimming over half a mile and doing calisthenics in between laps and he was still going. Tiredness was starting to set in a little; although he still had good form. “Gimme fifty more. Keep your back straight this time.”

‘Fuck!’ was the only thing the hitter thought as he counted out another fifty pushups. This time making sure his back was straight, and his arms went to at least ninety degrees. Up down; up down; … 

“Porpoise. Gimme five laps.”

Eliot started swimming, kicking his way to the bottom of the pool, touching it, pushing off, grabbing a breath of air at the top and then repeating. Fuck, he felt like he was back in BUDS again.

“Press-ups. Twenty-five.” Tate grunted out, he was really hoping he could grab a couple hours of sleep before the swim team showed up at six. As Eliot was pushing them out on the edge of the pool, the swim-coach noticed the hitter was slowing down. He allowed him a moment of rest before announcing “Five hundred, breast.”

‘Fuck me!’ Eliot grunted to himself as he readjusted his goggles and pushed off from the wall; this was brutal. He concentrated on his stroke Glide, push, pull, stretch, kick, glide, and repeat. He went for touch-offs instead of flip turns. Touch, kick-off the wall, glide, push, pull, stretch, kick, glide, …

When he finally made it back to the wall after five laps of breast stroke Tate just grunted at him at him and said “Thousand, free-kick. Use the board.” The ex-ATF agent was going to make him do more crunches; but, decided that just running his buddy’s sorry-ass up and down the pool was a better way to exhaust him. Run him until he couldn’t move.

The hitter could feel his legs burning as he churned up and down the fifty meter lane. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done anything today. Well, yesterday. He hadn’t been to bed today yet. The whole mess with Nate, and Hardison was giving him fits. Although at the moment, he was really too tired to care. He touched the wall at the end of his third lap, and looked up at one of the few men he’d call friend.

Tate looked down at Eliot and recognized the exhaustion in his face. He was almost ready to sleep. Just a little more would push him over the edge into dreamless sleep. “Five hundred free.” As the hitter moved to take off the fins, Tate shook his head no. “Keep ‘em. Slow, easy. Concentrate on form.”

Grumbling to himself Eliot kicked off from the wall and started swimming. He concentrated on using all of his leg muscles even though his thighs were starting to burn. He reached overhead and grabbed the water, then pulled. Kick, reach grab; kick, reach, grab… Unlike breast stroke, he didn’t get the glide to rest on. After two laps Tate’s arm was in the water signaling him.

“You’re smacking the water. Watch your form, keep consistent speed, and start over again.”

Nodding to himself Eliot started swimming again. Fuck he was tired! 

As the hitter touched the wall for the last time. He groaned his entire body was aching. The run he and Parker had gone on this morning; plus, all the bull-shit that had gone on over the course of the day, and now swimming over three miles. Yeah, he’s sleep… at least for a little while.

Tate had been watching his friend closely for the last five hundred meters. Yeah, he’d be driving him home. He knew that he’d never be one of Eliot’s close friends; honestly, he really didn’t think he had many of those left. Glenn was probably one of the few; they’d discussed him a few times. And the experiences he and Glenn had shared weren’t anything that he and Eliot would share. “One last set, Eliot.”

Eliot’s shoulders drooped a little. “What? Fucking butterfly?”

“Nah, squid. That’s for real swimmers.” The pool manager responded. “Gimme five hundred side-stroke.” At Eliot’s look of incredulousness Tate laughed “What you think that only anchor clankers know about it? Go swim, cool-down.” 

At the jerk of Tate’s chin Eliot pushed off from the wall and in slow deliberate strokes worked his way up and down the pool. As he was swimming Eliot was calculating in his head. It took a while, math when he was tired was not his strong point. Sixty-seven hundred meters. That wasn’t a distance he’d swam in a long time, well all at once. 

“Get your ass out of the pool, boy. Hit the showers. I’ll drive you home.”

“You do realize we’re the same age.” Eliot grumbled as he stared at the ladder two lanes over and really wanted to use that instead of pressing up against the wall and physically hauling himself out of the way. “Boy, my ass.”

“My pool. My workout. My way.” Tate took pity and reached down for Eliot’s hand and hauled him out of the pool.

Eliot took one of the fastest post pool showers on record. Just long enough to get the chlorine out of his skin and hair. Tate met him outside of the locker and jerked his head towards the parking lot. “I’ll take you home.”  
“I’m fine to drive.”

“Nope, not having you fall asleep at the wheel.”

That wasn’t something he’d argue with Tate on; Tate’s younger brother had died that way. So he climbed into the man’s stupid little save-the-earth vehicle. A fucking Prius. 

“Seat belt.”

The next thing he remembered was being gently shaken awake. “Get in there and go to sleep. Get your truck tomorrow.” Tate took it as a compliment that Eliot felt comfortable enough to sleep in the car with him. He knew how generally distrustful the hitter was about people, not that he didn’t have reason not to be.

And hopefully tomorrow and dealing with whatever the world threw Leverage’s way would be easier… Well, manageable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mountain climbers are pure hell! They start in the up position of a push-up, and move into a lunge, and then you switch legs. Depending on the variation there will be a jump or a jumping-jack. And this incredibly simple exercise manages to use way too many muscle groups which means you end up in a lot of pain, very quickly! An anchor clanker is a derogatory term for a sailor.
> 
> The workout is one I discussed with my husband who was a swimmer once upon a time before he broke himself. He thinks it should be about ten-thousand meters and should not involve getting in and out of the pool. I went with sixty-seven hundred meters (four-ish miles) based on the fact that Eliot has already had a long day.


	4. I Go Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations and some food notes are at the end.

There were some things that just made Eliot remember his childhood. Some happy times, some not so happy. The smell of line dried sheets on his bed, his mom’s Avon perfume, Brunswick stew in the crockpot for after church on Sunday, and the sound of Patsy Cline on the radio.

Eliot was standing in front of the kitchen window in his loft. The radio was playing low in the background. And there were some kids playing in the lot next door. He could hear they were playing music; but, it wasn’t loud enough for him to tell what it was. They didn’t know that Eliot had bought the empty lot when he’d bought this building, or that he’d been the one that had put up the basketball hoop. He talked to them occasionally, and very occasionally played a game or two of ball with them.

Right now it was a quiet Sunday, the team was between cons, and Eliot was pondering changing up the brewpub’s menu. It was winter, and cold gloomy weather called for comfort food. The song on the radio changed from someone the hitter had never heard of to an older Kenny Chesney song. Watching the kids play, he began humming along with the radio. When it reached his favorite verse he started singing

> “So I go back to a pew, preacher, and a choir  
>  Singin ‘bout God, brimstone, and fire  
>  And the smell of Sunday chicken after church”

The words ‘ _the smell of Sunday chicken after church_ ’ made him realize what had been bugging him. He’d make Brunswick stew and biscuits. Biscuits because everyone associated southern food with biscuits, even though most people he knew had served Brunswick stew with loaf bread. Which was just a fancy name for sliced white bread. For Sunday supper his momma would serve it with a tossed salad with the fancy dressing that the IGA had started carrying when Eliot was in junior high: Kraft’s Raspberry Vinaigrette.

Smiling wryly at the words in the song; because he did remember the feel of the fifty-yard line, and getting to third base with whats-her-name. Eliot rummaged around in his freezer and found some leftover smoked pork roast, beef, and a chicken. He grabbed his grinder and ran all three meats through the grinder before setting them to brown quickly. He went into his small pantry and grabbed the big crockpot, and stopped at his fridge grabbing an onion, a bag of lima beans and one of corn that he’d frozen last summer, as well as a few more things.

He laid everything out on the counter, plugged the crockpot in and enjoyed the familiar rhythms of the kitchen. He put the meat into the crockpot adding some homemade turkey stock, water, a pinch of dried thyme and a bay leaf for good luck. At least that was what his momma always used to say. 

Taking apart the grinder, he pulled up the food processor and minced the onion; some drained canned tomatoes, the lima beans, and corn and dumped them in the crockpot. It was starting to smell good! The only thing his kitchen needed now was Patsy Cline on the radio singing Crazy. So instead he started singing, drowning out the noise of the radio.

> “I'm crazy for feeling so lonely  
>  I'm crazy  
>  Crazy for feeling so blue.” 

He watched the boys outside play ball for a little while and then stirred a bouillon cube into the thickening stew which smelled like home. He double-checked to make sure the crockpot was on low, and added in the Worcestershire sauce he’d forgotten to add earlier, as well as a couple grinds of pepper. Just a little bit of zip was nice. And went to toss on a pair of shorts and tenny-runners to see if he could play a game of ball with the kids in the lot. 

Eliot wasn’t really tall enough to ever be a great basketball player; but, he had speed and an innate knowledge for tactics even at a young age. Both of those had helped him hold his own on the court. After an hour of play Eliot called it quits, sweat was rolling down his face and he needed to check on the stew. On his way in he grabbed the mail, the new issue of Saveur magazine had come in; plus some supply catalogs: Brewing, linens, and the such. It was always fun to flip through them and see what new was hitting the marketplace.

Walking into the loft the smell of the slow simmering stew hit Eliot’s nose at the same time the song on the radio hit him and for a moment he was transported back home. All that was missing was the smell of his mom’s perfume and the beer his dad liked to drink. The hitter grabbed a drink of water and cracked a beer, a lager like his dad liked. Mild and cold. 

Finishing his glass of water and grabbing the beer Eliot cracked the crockpot and breathed in the smell of home as the steam hit his face. He snagged a spoon and took a bite, almost perfect. Spinning around Eliot grabbed a block of cream cheese, and a bottle of hot sauce. A half teaspoon of hot sauce, and a nice little slice of cream cheese; he mixed them in and watched the color change to a slightly creamier color. After all comfort food should always have plenty of fat! At least that was what Hardison claimed, Eliot tended to agree with him. Some things just shouldn’t be tampered with, low-fat macaroni and cheese: Forget about it! Cream of crab soup without the cream: No way!

Yeah, this was pretty much a perfect Sunday. Eliot texted Hardison and said he’d bring dinner over later. He knew that Hardison would tell the team, and probably Amy. And they would probably be six or seven people for dinner. He walked back through the kitchen, turned off the radio, grabbed Saveur, and flopped down on the couch he’d found a few months back at a used furniture store. It was broken in, not stiff like new couches. This one was kind of a weird green with some pink in it; and a smattering of brown here and there. His friend Bobby’s mom had one like it back when they’d been in elementary school; and she’d been so proud of it. She wouldn't even let them sit on it for the first few months she’d had it. This looked to be a good a good issue of Saveur, preserved peaches and an article on Marseille. He closed his eyes and savored for a moment; Marseille. He remembered the bouillabaisse he’d eaten in that little place off on a side-street. And the serveuse… Well, that had been a night!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Brunswick Stew recipe I’m basing this off is one I’ve developed to mimic the one from Huck’s Café in Commerce Georgia. Everything in their stew appears to be ground so there are no large chunks. My husband loves it because it is thick enough for him to put in tortillas. Yes, I know that traditional hunter’s stews don’t have cream cheese in them; but, it gives the stew a really nice creamy note – try it some time. Just don’t drown the stew in dairy!
> 
> Serveuse -- Waitress


	5. Dill Pickles & Strawberries

It had been a long time since Eliot had needed to deal with pregnant women. And that wasn’t a bad thing – between the hormones, aches and pains, and constant needing to pee, along with their general willingness to announce it to whole world! The hitter was generally glad that in the world he usually operated in there were no pregnant women. Except right now both Lisa, their most experienced waitress, and Jane the daytime bartender announced they were pregnant and due within a week of each other. Eliot wasn't sure whether that was a good thing, or a bad thing.

Tuesday he’d made Lisa a plate of tacos for lunch: Grilled marinated chicken topped with fried dill pickles and a spinach strawberry salad on the side. He’d almost gagged when Lisa had put the strawberries on the pickle tacos and topped the whole thing the spiced crema fresca. Her eyes had rolled around in ecstasy, and the next thing he’d known all of Lisa’s Lamaze class had been demanding the pickle taco special. So now between Lisa’s pickles and strawberry craving, and Jane’s desire for cream cheese on anything he now had a weekly 'preggie' special going. And now that two separate mom-to-be groups were meeting in the back room on a regular basis, the demand for Tamika’s locally sourced and organic herbal tisanes was through the roof. The same went for the caramel swirl ice cream with dark chocolate covered potato chips and a little bit cinnamon sprinkled through it. Yeah, weird flavor; but, the ladies loved it and it was from the small ice cream place three streets over that hand churned all their products from organic locally sourced cream.

Last week he’d done a white fish broiled in a white wine reduction; high in iodine which is good for a baby’s brain development, with a jicama broccoli slaw, and as per a Lisa and Jane suggestion, fried sweet plantains. They’d sold out of it every day! 

But, this week he was stumped; he’d completely run out of ideas. Eliot had been getting suggestions from Lisa, Jane and several other ladies. And he’d vetoed nachos with broccoli and ranch dressing; vegemite dumplings; fried potatoes with alfredo sauce and Thousand-Island dressing. Well, he had been stuck until last night when Clint had stopped by his loft. Clint was an old pal from Eliot’s Navy days and still worked with the alphabet soup agencies and they’d spent most of last night shooting the breeze and after Clint pulled a bottle of wódka they’d moved onto reminiscing about their last mission together an inter-agency operation in Poland. Krakow to be exact. It had gone FUBAR like most inter-agency things and turned into a giant shit storm. Which had led Clint and Eliot to spending a couple days laying low in Krakow, before moving on to the tongue twisting town of Gwizdaly in Mazowsze. They’d then spent the better part of a week in Gwizdaly drinking bad beer, for Eliot was not generally a fan of Eastern European beer, but good wódka; eating amazing food; and arguing about everything from the state of American football to weapons. Eliot still didn’t get why Clint was so attached to the bow and arrow; and Clint didn’t get Eliot's aversion to guns.

They’d been so bored that week they’d even gone to the museum and paid extra for the guided tour. That had been two hours he’d never get back. Two fricking hours listening to an old man discuss the history of whistles. Whistles! Apparently the Mazowsze region was known for whistles. But, they were also famous for their, zupa ogórkowa, dill pickle soup. 

After they’d had lunch at a little café not too far from the museum, it had served the best zupa ogórkowa; it had been subtle and complex. It was nowhere near bland! There had been hints of allspice and dill, a touch of both sweet and dill pickles with little bits of smoked pork, shredded pickle, and minced leek. All in a creamy base. That soup had been amazing!

So Eliot would see if he could recreate that and pair it with a beet salad and homemade pierogi. Jane would want fruit filled ones with sweetened sour cream. So maybe he’d do a three course lunch special, start with a cup of soup and a slice of fresh brown bread, then some of the smoked pork on a bed of homemade sauerkraut with a side of beet salad and finished with sweet pierogi stuffed with tart cherries and a dollop of sweetened sour cream. 

Right now, he just needed to get rid of the hangover. Clint, as usual had stayed late and they’d been drinking wódka; Polish stuff. Eliot wasn’t sure how Clint got it into the states; but, he wasn’t going to ask questions. There had been some food too, but not enough. Leverage’s hitter could really go for a bowl of zurak right now. The Polish hangover cure, a white borscht that he and Clint had been introduced to when Clint had charmed a couple of wedding invitations from their inn keeper. The zurak had been served at the end of the wedding after many shots of wódka, and mugs of piwo, the crappy local beer, to sober everyone up so they could limp home. Eliot shook his head, and moaned at the movement; that wedding had been memorable. He was pretty sure that he and Clint had done a rather memorable version of Love Shack. It had been one of the few songs they’d had in English. Yeah, that had been a night. 

Eliot opened his fridge and stared; nope no sausage rye soup, but there was bread and pickled herring. Another hangover cure, and hopefully as effective as zupa. Taking some Motrin, Ranger candy as Clint called it, Eliot waited for the bread to toast. Toast was so much better than bread for soaking up excess alcohol and the salt in the pickled herring would help balance his electrolytes. So much better than Gatorade or that sauerkraut juice soda shit that Clint had tried to give him once. Just because it was all the rage in Russia didn’t mean that he was going to drink it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sauerkraut soup is real, and it is amazing! If you are ever in the Denver area seek out Cracovia and have their soup – and be prepared to be amazed! And according to the internet sauerkraut soda is real; blech. I shudder just thinking about it. And on a side note; One Night Stand is not dead, I just suck at writing sex. So if anyone would like to co-author the next chapter – I would greatly appreciate the help! Just shoot me a PM.


	6. Throwback Thursday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OMG! I'm so excited for Leverage 2.0. The twists and turns.

“Ooooh… Did you see this picture of Lisa?”

“Yeah, that baby picture looks just like her Makenzie.”

“I love Throwback Thursday! I so need to dig up some pictures from when I was a kid.” 

“Hey Eliot, did you see the picture of Lisa that she posted this morning?” Amy asked as she walked into the kitchen staring at her phone. Throwback Thursday was a blast, it was probably one of the waitresses favorite days. It seemed like everyone had posted a few pictures from their childhood. Even Amy had posted a couple pictures from primary school. There really wasn’t too much you could tell about them, frumpy uniforms, braces, and bad hair. Lots of kids wore uniforms, so to the other waitstaff who she was friends with on Facebook wouldn’t know that St James Preparatory was one of the most exclusive schools around.

“Uh” He grunted. The former Navy SEAL really didn’t understand the whole Facebook thing. It was kind of cool seeing his nieces and nephews grow up in something other than the infrequent school pictures he got. Eliot turned and looked at Amy’s phone from where he was chopping vegetables. And he burst out laughing. They both looked like little aliens!

Hardison glanced up from his computer in the office; he too was chuckling . “You know we could do a Throwback Thursday” special.”

Amy clapped her hands excitedly “We could put the staff’s baby pictures on the special menu!”

Eliot tried to bring them back down to earth, a little: “And what would we put on this special menu?” He shook his head as he kept chopping vegetables, neither of them had a clue about how hard it was to plan an entire menu. 

“My Nana’s fried chicken.” Hardison said with emphasis “She made it for all the church suppers.”

Jane the daytime bartender piped up from where she was slicing oranges and fruit “My mom’s Hawaiian meatballs. She made them for the church dinners. They have maraschino cherries and pinapple in the sauce.”

Eliot cringed; but, he could see where this was going: Comfort food. “So deviled eggs, tuna noodle casserole, tater-tot casserole, Jell-O salads, tossed salads made with iceburg lettuce, and…”

“Ice cream!” Parker demanded walking in eating a cone from the place down the street that provided the ice cream for their ‘preggie special.’ Eliot had wanted to end that special when Jane and Lisa gave birth; but, it had become entrenched. That along with the groups that met at the pub, the two pregnancy groups, and one breast-feeding support group. Then add Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce that had started meeting in the private room. Their rooms had started to become in such high demand Eliot and Hardison had started thinking about expanding the brewpub into the currently empty space next door. 

“Pigs in a blanket” Added one of the new waiters. When Eliot glared at him he hastily added “They’re the only thing my mom could cook without burning it.”

Okay, Eliot now in his executive chef mode could work with this. A special three course menu with a choice of starters (he wasn’t going to call them hor d’ ourves): Deviled eggs, pigs in a blanket or cocktail meatballs. For the entrée tuna noodle casserole, Hawaiian meatballs over rice, or tater tot casserole. Where had he seen a recipe for tater tot casserole? Oh yeah, that TV show about the family with two million children. Nate had been watching it, weird. But, so was he. Sides, a choice of sweet coleslaw, Jell-O salad, tossed salad with iceburg lettuce and French dressing, or…

“Frog eye salad!” Amy tossed in as she walked in.

“What the hell is Frog eye salad?” Eliot growled as his train of thought was interrupted. 

“My roommate’s mom makes it. It’s really good.”

“What’s in it?”

That made Amy shrug her shoulders. “It’s creamy and sweet and has little round pasta things in it, and pineapple and oranges.”

Hardison yelled from the office “I found a recipe for it, it’s got Cool Whip, eggs, lemon juice, and acine de Pepe.” He paused “What are those?”

“Acini de pepe. They’re a pasta that is about the size of a tapioca pearl.” He ran through the ingredients that Amy and the hacker had given him in his head. “Okay, it’s a sweet pasta salad with a lemon-pineapple custard base. That could be edible.”

“It’s better than edible, it’s amazing! Not too sweet, with just a hint of tart, and the textures…” Amy sighed in remembrance of the salad her roommate’s mom had made.

So, maybe they should do a prix fix menu instead of pick this or that. Do something like a bento, or a school lunch tray with a little of this and a little of that. One deviled egg, a meatball, and pig in a blanket followed by a couple of mini-entrees and some sides. Kind of like a church potluck where you ended up with a little bit of everything on your plate. 

“Ice cream”

Yes, with ice cream or pudding for dessert. This could work. Ice cream just for Parker..

“Ohhh… Snickers salad.”

“Hardison, candy bars do not belong in salads!” The hitter growled; his pile of chopped carrots for the Shepard’s pie steadily growing.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the buttercream frosting recipe is real. It’s my husband’s favorite frosting recipe. He bakes, I don’t!


End file.
